Singing in a Mexican Choir

Seeing the Good

and

Feeling White

            I knew the moment I walked into the chapel that night that I stood out. We had been told to wear a white shirt, black bottoms, and a red scarf. I was pleased that I didn’t have to buy anything besides a scarf. But as I walked into the church and saw my friend Roger looking sharp in a full suit and all the women wearing the prettiest and whitest blouses matched with pencil skirts and tights, I couldn’t help but feel ashamed about my white t-shirt and black pants. Roger assured me that I looked fine and no one would notice.

            I knew that being the only white girl in the choir would make me stand out, but I didn’t know that it would make me feel as terrible as it did. As we lined up in rows to sing, I noticed the lights illuminating the strands of the brown and black hair of the ladies in front of me. I heard the blur of voices as the people around me excitedly spoke Spanish to each other. Then I made the mistake of looking out into the crowd of people patiently waiting for us to start singing. And in that moment, I felt that all eyes were on me: the gringa, the guera, the light-skinned girl who didn’t belong and sang without a Spanish accent and mumbled over words she didn’t know.

In that moment, I felt extremely white.

Now being a blond-haired, blue-eyed girl in Mexico, I know all about feeling white. I know about being stared at wherever I go and about being flirted with and hit on just because I’m white. I’ve been called the “whitest” in the group and my Spanish has been laughed at. I was even asked if I wanted to pay for my tacos in dollars. But none of that compared to the feeling I had at this moment. I had never felt so white.

And I regretted the decision I had made to join the choir, to show up that night, and to practice songs when I knew I would never sing them perfectly. I felt so out of place because I knew my frizzy blonde curls would never match their straight jet black hair, because I knew that I would never be able to pronounce the “y” sound in Spanish correctly, because I knew that my skin would never match theirs, that I would never fit in.

But then the lights on the house lit up and the piano started playing and the director announced the first song. My mind was taken from my pitied state as the messages of the joy, peace, and love told through Christ’s birth filled the air. After the music and the applause ended, Roger met me with a kiss on the cheek and a firm hug. When he pulled away he smiled and joked that he had heard “the white girl trying to sing Spanish.”

But at that moment it didn’t matter. My terrible singing didn’t matter, the color of my skin didn’t matter, and my broken Spanish didn’t matter.

And somehow that night turned into one of the best nights I had experienced in Mexico. Because the lightness of my skin, or the darkness of theirs, doesn’t make us any different. Because people are good all around the world. Because we really are more similar than we are different.